The mark of any great band is the ability to sidestep trends and defy the conventional. California’s Cormorant has been the blueprint of this mantra since the release of their debut album Metazoa in 2009. Last year’s Dwellings was even more of a critical darling, getting mentions on dozens of year-end lists from both publications and listeners. Vocalist/bassist Arthur von Nagel has earned praise for his three-dimensional lyrics and vocal contrast between bitter spits and soothing croons. For von Nagel, it took the debut album from Dark Quarterer, a band from a small town on the west coast of Italy, to open his eyes to the possibilities of what Dwellings would become.
“Speaking only for personal contributions to Dwellings, this album was one of the major influences that helped redefine the sound I heard in my head after Metazoa,” von Nagel said. “It impacted so much of my vocal inflections and bass fills, and it really made me want to record to analog to capture a similarly raw sound.”
Dark Quarterer formed in the early ‘70s, the product of three young musicians from Piombino, Italy. They were a covers band for years, until they started to write their own material in 1978, on the advice of a friend. They spent six years composing material for a debut album, and in 1987, they finally put out a self-titled debut. The long delay in releasing a proper LP came from a multitude of factors the band got caught up in.
“At that age in 1978, no recording studio was near our town, and we were obliged to go in two times in Milano (north of Italy) to record the album,” said Dark Quarterer vocalist/bassist Gianni Nepi. “One part in 1984, and other songs (were done) in 1985 with two different sound engineers.”
Self-financed and only released in the immediate area, the album was given high praise by local magazines, but never found an audience in the U.S. Their distinguishable sound, which drew from all corners of metal, was not very mainstream, even by metal’s standards. As was probably the case with many people, von Nagel had a tough time getting into it.
“I was certainly puzzled at first,” von Nagel revealed. “The production at first listen is terrible. It's not too unlike Darkthrone’s production. Feels like the whole thing is going to just break at any moment.”
That is an understandable barrier to get through. For an album released in the late ‘80s, it sounds like a vinyl relic from the ‘70s dug up, dusted off, and copied onto a cassette tape. However, that is where its charm comes from; it makes the band have to work extra hard in their songwriting. These six songs are lengthy, full of constant tempo shifts, and ear-shattering shrieks from Nepi. He’s like an untamed Geddy Lee, showing no restraint and willing to push his vocals to heights that seem impossible for most normal singers to reach.
Some listeners may find Nepi’s vocals to be on the melodramatic side, but von Nagel began to embrace the album, in spite of the production and vocals, after almost a whole year of reflection. Nepi’s vocals on Dark Quarterer had an influence on von Nagel’s performance on Dwellings.
“I would kill to have Nepi's pipes, and the ludicrously massive wails about halfway through ‘Colossus of Argil’ led to my attempts to add "clean" screams to my repertoire,” von Nagel said. “You hear that in ‘Funambulist,’ and the closing scream on ‘Unearthly Dreamings.’ I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.”
Notice that nothing has been made of what genre they are, or what kind of sound they mimicked. Throwing words like “doom” and “progressive” out there is unfair to how ahead of their time Dark Quarterer really was. It’s all of these words and none of them, at the same time. Nepi mentioned that the band mixed, “Classic symphonies like Beethoven or Bach or Paganini...with Black Sabbath and some doom influences.”
Cormorant and Dark Quarterer both attempt to avoid the restrictions of being forced into a stereotypical genre description. “You can't confine them to genre, and this is what we seek to capture with Cormorant,” von Nagel explained. “The new and the old together, a bastard child of influences coalescing into something different.”
Speaking a foreign language and having to write lyrics in English is something that is never given much of a second thought by listeners. Nepi’s lack of English is noticeable in the choppy, short phrases that he writes. Reading them from an outside perspective, they seem pretty unsubstantial, but the beauty of Nepi’s lyrics is that a language barrier does not hold back on the impact and non-linear thinking behind them.
A great lyricist knows how to weave a tale that could have multiple interpretations, and Nepi does that with this album. von Nagel saw these lyrics as something not only religious, but worldly. “All over their self-titled album there's this desperation, this longing toward history and legacy, this struggle to understand one's place in the world in relation to art, with music, with religion. These are themes we explore as well,” von Nagel said.
Asking Nepi about the lyrics finds that they have nothing to do with religion, at least not in a traditional sense. “I don't believe in God or Christ or Buddha or other gods,” Nepi explained, “but I believe in something more universal that everything controls and dominates.”
This contrast of opinions from the lyrical side helps to reinforce just how deep Dark Quarterer really goes. From the thoughts of a do-gooder, the mention of Lucifer on “Gates of Hell” may mean that the band are some Satanic worshipers or a Venom knock-off. However, Nepi doesn’t just see the whole aura of the Devil as something to praise to.
“Lucifer is the Hell king,” Nepi said. “We choose a figure like this to identify a person so bad and so cold, but just to let people understand our intentions.”
Dark Quarterer is working on re-recording their first album with new arraignments and keyboards, which the band added into their sound back in 2008 with Symbols. Not only is it going to be released worldwide for the first time, but it will give the band a second chance to connect with a new generation of metal listeners.
“All the fans ask to listen to those songs with a more understandable sound and now we have a professional studio recording in which we can stay all the time we need,” Nepi said.
While Dark Quarterer prepares for the future by heading back to the past, Cormorant continues to ride off the burst of popularity the band has seen in the metal community in the past year. Both of these bands can be considered “original,” though having been brought up in different eras of music could have something to do with that.
A lack of a worldwide distribution deal hurt Dark Quarterer’s chances of reaching widespread attention, but thanks to the Internet, they may have a chance to fulfill Nepi’s lifelong dream: to play in the U.S. Until that happens, people like von Nagel will be out there, spreading the message to whoever will listen about what is so appealing about Dark Quarterer.
“There is no shame in this music, no irony or self-consciousness,” von Nagel said. “It's a pure expression of passion and love for the occult and rock music. It's pure and honest. These traits are rare and should be treasured.”
